Aldridge's tone struck Grey. He stood up, stretched out his hand to Aldridge, took the manager's hand in his, and said impressively: "Aldridge, I am sure of that."

"Thank you. Now you may go on. I will not interrupt again."

"You know my mother has advertised her house and furniture for sale?"

"Yes."

"And that she is about to sell her annuity."

"So I have heard."

"I, as trustee, have just signed the documents. There is talk about this affair in town?"

"There is; a good deal. People cannot understand it."

"It came as a great shock and surprise to me when I heard it. It was that shock knocked me up in London."

"I thought it must have had something to do with it."

"It was the cause of it. Well, I am placed in a horribly awkward position. My mother is called upon to pay a large sum of money, say eight to ten thousand. Of course, we could easily manage that."

"Easily, I should think," said Aldridge, thinking with pride of the gallant stand the Bank had made in the late ruinous times.

"But," continued Grey, "if I paid the money now, I might be called upon to pay a similar or even a larger sum in six months, and again six months later, and I could not stand that kind of thing."

Aldridge shook his head and looked grave in confirmation of Grey's decision.

"The things must be sold," continued the banker. "When she has no property to pledge, no annuity to pawn, I can make a suitable allowance to her. The fact is, Aldridge, my poor mother has lost all her money in gambling on the Stock Exchange. Her name does not appear. She did it through some fellow in London. Now you see how there is nothing for it but to sell out. You see that clearly?"

"Nothing in the world could be plainer. A woman of her age!"

"Isn't it extraordinary in a woman of her years?"

"Wonderful!"

"Now I told you I threw myself on your honour, and what I want you to do is to keep the matter rigidly to yourself, except in such cases as you in your judgment think silence would injure the Bank, and then you must not reveal the facts except upon a pledge of strict, the strictest secrecy. No earthly consideration would induce me to allow my poor mother's name to become a byword in Daneford, where she has been respected for so many years. Aldridge, Aldridge, my friend, I count on you to do this for me."

This time it was the manager who stood up. He went to the banker, caught his hand, and said: "You may count upon me in this, Mr. Grey, as upon yourself. I should be the last in the world to make idle talk about the name of Grey, and you may rely upon my keeping the secret from everyone, except when the interest of the Bank is at stake."

"Thank you, my dear Aldridge. It is a great relief to me to have opened my mind to you. You are the only man whose discretion I could trust in so delicate a matter."

In a little while Aldridge took his leave, and Grey was left alone.

"By Jove," he mused, "that returned letter was a splendid tonic. It pulled me together like magic. I feel a new man now—a new man. Now I have only one person to take care of—myself. She would not hear me. Because I tried to save her the misery I myself endured, because I represented things to her as flourishing when all was gone, she turns on me, throws me off, draws attention to my credit and my reputation when I should have neither if the truth were known, if the lesser truth were known; and by opening up inquiry leading to the discovery of the lesser truth, the disclosure of the greater was risked.

"By Jove, that returned letter was my salvation! She thought she was treating me as I deserved, severely; all the time she was only nerving me to lace my armour and prepare for the great fight. I can easily provide now against any course she may take short of denunciation, and I don't think she will go so far as that.

"The reason for the sale, as Aldridge has heard it, will be known under pledges of secrecy to-morrow to half-a-dozen of the most important men in Daneford. That will be more than enough to counteract any sinister rumours. The pledge of secrecy extracted from the men whom Aldridge tells will not operate at all, save in making those to whom they give the news very careful as to whom they in turn tell it. Thus it will never come to her ears, even if she stays in Daneford, which I doubt; and thus she will never have an opportunity of denying it."

He got up and walked about. His elation was great. He swelled out his chest, threw back his shoulders, and allowed his arms to swing at his sides. His thoughts ran on:

"I have been fencing with death, and for the moment I have disarmed my foe. That sale might have ruined me, given me over to the hangman; I have averted the danger, and turned the attack into a source of security. In a moment of weakness I told her, in a moment of strength I turned the feeble act into a fresh rampart; for how can I tell, if things went on smoothly, as they had been going (had she not shown the danger-signal at the Consols), I might not, in the weak and pitiful state I then was in, have told her all? Now a gulf lies between her and me. It is unlikely we shall ever meet again. She had the power of exercising an influence over me which might not be to my safety. I have ensured my future safety by getting away from the influence of the only person who could make me indiscreetly talkative."

He paused in his walk and drew himself up before the glass. Much of the haggard expression had left his face. He was flushed and handsome-looking as of old. His eyes shone with excitement and the anticipation of triumph.

Once more he strode up and down the room.

"I feel five-and-twenty to-day. Five-and-twenty; not a month older. And though in spirits and health and strength I feel no more than half my age, I am conscious I carry the experience of a second quarter of a century on the shoulders of the first. I could command an army or make love to a school-girl. I shall win yet. I shall win in spite of that lanky nigger, Sir William. I shall win I know, I feel. These muscles are more than a match for his; this head is more than a match for his; and in spirits I am a long way his junior. I shall win now, for all obstacles are out of my way. She is gone for ever, and she was the last link with——Bah! the old time is dead. Earth to earth. I am a new man, I say."

In all this he never thought of her as his mother. He always looked upon her as she or her; never as mother. He treated her as if the spirit of his mother had left the body, and the spirit of another, a stranger, had entered in.

That night he slept well, and started early for the Castle the next day.